Legion - Appearances

NOTE: This is a curated version of the original thread posted in Area 52. Most comment have been removed for clarity and anonymity. A retrospective thread is in the works. Stay tuned.

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This guide shows you how to capitalize on Legion's most exciting feature - the Appearances collection.

Most of you are familiar with the new feature, but here's a quick primer for those behind the curve;

The "Appearances" tab is Blizzard's Wardrobe system. It allows you to collect item "Appearances" just like you would collect Heirlooms or pets. It's a far more refined a thought-out system than the current transmog system. Transmogging is the act of applying one of these Appearances to your items.

The Appearances in your collection can be unlocked by acquiring an item with said appearance and binding it. This means you need to equip BoE items in order to unlock their Appearance. Where quest items are concerned, you unlock all quest items upon quest completion, and this is retroactive to quests completed in the past.

Unlocked appearances are account-wide, but you cannot view or use Appearances for proficiency your character doesn't have. For instance, a druid may not use cloth Appearances and mages may not use two-handed axe Appearances. This is a bit of a "nerf" to the system, as previously, classes could transmog down (a warrior could transmog any armor piece, for example).

The Appearances collection shows all Appearances available, locked and unlocked (this is huge). It also shows the source items to unlock each Appearance.

Some looks can be unlocked by acquiring one of several items. For example, unlock the same Appearance as . For this reason there won't be much additional demand for the former.

A key point is that some Appearances are completely unique - meaning only a single item can unlock it. Certain precious items, such as , are unique. These are generally the items we'll focus on as goblins. There are hundreds of crafted unique Appearances, which will give professions a much needed boost in Legion.

Edit: Some people are asking for a clearer definition of "unique". I will let the screenshots explain;

My reasoning is that unlike professions, there's a way to keep score with Appearances; the "unlocked" meter, and Achievements. Moreover, Appearances have a real, tangible use. You can transmog any Appearance you've unlocked, whereas most old-world crafts have no use whatsoever. Lastly, locked appearances are shown and grayed out, which will entice and introduce players to collecting Appearances.

Quite simply there's more appeal to Appearances than there is for professions. Profession completionists are a rarity, whereas players obsessed with looks are a dime a dozen. It's worth noting that the demand for old-world crafted Appearances might revive the market for certain rare recipes, especially those with BoP crafts. More on that later.

First thing you'll notice about the Appearances collection is that it's quite simply gigantic. There are thousands of items in it and curating a "buy list" is a daunting task. Lucky for you uncle Sterling has done all the hard work.

For starters, here's a quick look at my TSM groups;

You can import the entire structure (including items) with this string;

Appearances have become a big part of profiting from professions. The number of unique crafted Appearances is staggering. Certain associated old-world crafting materials are going to skyrocket as a collateral effect of demand from Appearances. Think , , , , , , , , etc, etc, etc.

Note that shirts have made a comeback as well. Shirts that were previously common in quality and/or market as cosmetic are now of uncommon quality and can be learned in the Appearances collection.

Some unique appearances are no longer learnable, such as , , and others. Here's a full list of notable crafted items (work in progress - help us expand on it!).

Anyway should be a great item to be spam crafted. The materials are cheap and I can see it selling really well due to its unique - and quite beautiful - white look.

Another amazing item to craft, which I still do and sell regularly (always keeping a stock of at least 3 in my inventory) is the . Its pattern is quite rare and costly (avg 150-200k) and it's one of the few amazingly looking one-hand swords that stays on the back.
I'm also taking on the " AH clear" train, and will be crafting those MoP weapons that require you to actually go and forge in the Isle of Thunder. The recipes for these are not so common since you needed a ton of dailies to obtain all the last levels, and players are lazy to go craft them anyway.

On the topic of this, I expect old world mats to go crazy. People will be wanting to buy everything everywhere to get their hands on items. Are you guys planning on stocking those?

Originally Posted by Samiera

I've been working on stocking all kinds of mats for various crafted pieces. is a good one to watch for. Lots of cool weapons like and and a few unique armor pieces (some of the dark iron plate has alternates and the chest is BoP).

Bought a ton of , since the price is quite low atm. I need it for BS and .

Stocking up on cheap silk cloth. Many of the shirts need silk, and I have learned on my tailor. Mageweave is needed for shirts too. Frostweave also. Really, I'm buying large quantities on -all- cloth, but those 3 in particular.

Buying mats for , , and some of the other AQ related crafted BoE's, since I suspect they may be somewhat overlooked. Also stocking mats for . They look fantastic with a few of the DK and darker Warrior sets.

Leatherworkers: . Costs about 100g to craft on my realm, sells for 1-2k. Often overlooked by transmog crafters. I actually need to go make some more, I'm out and have little competition on this item, despite playing on a high pop realm. Also stocking mats for Stylin' Hats. I only have the patterns for and , but going to work on farming the other 2 soon.

This post got larger than I intended, and I feel like I haven't even mentioned 1/100th of the items to craft. At this point, I'm stocking the mats more than the actual items, since bag space is an issue on some of my crafters. Also, I figure that if I end up with more competition than I want to deal with on the actual armor, I can always try to re-sell the mats at a mark-up.

BoE Recipes for BoP Crafts

99% of crafted BoPs in the game are learned from a BoP recipe or trainer. In some rare instances, the source is a BoE recipe. As it stands, these recipes are in the basement in terms of demand and price. Appearances may change that.

After some thought, I'm not certain that all these will be a home-run. Some are in high supply (anything that drops in Black Temple), but at 50g apiece, there's little to no downside. If you want to play it safe, consider the low-medium supply recipes only.

and (medium supply) (medium supply) (low supply) (shares a look with Living Earth Shoulders) (shares a look with Shoulders of Lightning Reflexes)

Rares

These are items so rare that only a few (if any) are available globally. If you find one, strongly consider buying it regardless of cost. One caveat though; should Blizzard decide to remove it from the Appearances, demand will drop sharply.
@Sapu94 was instrumental in helping me identify rares by supplying a reference for global supply which enabled me to easily spot supreme rares. Most of the items below have seldom been seen at the Auction House. I've included them here for reference, but don't worry, they're in the master imports above.

An important note on unobtainables and supreme rares; the Appearances collection shows every item reasonably obtainable to players. As a general rule of thumb, it DOES NOT include unobtainable items and for good reason. Items like are not shown in the collection, but can be added to it if you happen to own one. Blizzard is actively looking for such items (link).

However their logic for inclusion/exclusion isn't clear, and some "unobtainables" are still in the collection. I call these supreme rares.

Supreme rares: , ,

Rares:

DMF Replicas

Blizzard brought back some of the most classic sets in the game with the Darkmoon Faire Replicas. The supply for these items is throttled by the number of Darkmoon Faire Tickets one can obtain per character, so I perceive this market as relatively safe.

Salvage Crates

In WoD Salvaging became a daily routine for most players. As a result, we saw a massive influx of BoE items of all kinds, from rare to common. Salvage also brought back some items that were otherwise unobtainable.

With salvage crates gone in 7.0, this effect will be reversed. (note; any salvage crate you already have will be unchanged)

In general, BoE items will be in shorter supply. So any investment in unique Appearances should yield returns strictly on the basis of lower supply.

For the better part, most salvage items are also world drops, but on occasion, they are sourced primarily or entirely by Salvage Crates. @Samiera and myself managed to identify a handful of these items, but our list was somewhat limited. That's when I touched base with @Erorus, and boy did he ever come through. He was able to supply me with a list of every auctionable item in-game, along with its respective number of drops from mobs vs crates. This allowed me to build an extensive group of items sourced from crates. The master group (above) contains subgroups targeting these very items.

WORLD DROPS

Not much to say here. I've split world drops in various categories, so you can pick and choose where to focus your searches. Personally I prefer helm/chest/shoulders/legs over any other slot. I consider belt, waist and wrists tier 3 investments, unless they fall under the 100% Salvage or supreme rare class.

Misc Items

In a stroke of genius, tedj asked me to check on the items rewarded from . Guess what, most are unique!

As if that wasn't enough, the quest line forks into two separate quests, one for sword users and one for non-sword users. To obtain all Appearances from Battered Hilt, players must complete the quest line twice, ie: purchase two Battered Hilts! Hoarders rejoice!

Edit: Samiera tells me you only need to complete the quest once to unlock ALL appearances.

I feel that deserves a special mention as well. It's NOT in the default Appearances collection, but no doubt players will seek it more than ever. Remember that any item can be added to the collection, even though they're not part of the original, locked collection.

The amount of time and effort that needs to go in to making a good targeted list is staggering. I'm taking the carpet bombing approach and just making it all.

I truly regret not having a blacksmith or leatherworker, but I've been prepping for this from a Tailoring perspective for a while now. I already sell a decent quantity of oldworld items for ludicrous profits. All I know is that inventory management is going to be a nightmare for the first few weeks of the Wardrobe. Cancel scans are going to be all but useless for the Appearances market, so I just hope that I'm one of the few people on my server to have prepared for this by stockpiling materials.

I'm a little jealous of people who still have their original accounts and might have some of the rarer patterns. Less so if those items were removed from the appearances tab.

I predict a transfer of wealth during the release of the Wardrobe the likes of which World of Warcraft has never seen.

I would encourage each of you to take a little time and reference your most expensive transmog items against the Appearances tab on PTR or Beta. That 50k BoE might have the same appearance as a Leatherworking craft that will run you about 90g in mats. Sell them now to uninformed snipers.

Ditto for super expensive PvP twink items. Twinking is dead, so dump those BoEs before you wind up with vendor trash!

I would encourage each of you to take a little time and reference your most expensive transmog items against the Appearances tab on PTR or Beta. That 50k BoE might have the same appearance as a Leatherworking craft that will run you about 90g in mats. Sell them now to uninformed snipers.

Ditto for super expensive PvP twink items. Twinking is dead, so dump those BoEs before you wind up with vendor trash!

Just so we're clear most of the items listed in the OP have been cross-referenced and are indeed unique. Truefaith Vestments was an error.

In the same vein, I'm thinking of dumping a pile of gold into WoD epics (crafted and dropped). It'll be a while before players can solo that content, it's just a matter of weighing current demand vs future demand.

Note that supply for crafted WoD gear will be throttled significantly in Legion. Most players won't care to farm the Truesteel Ingots, etc. I can grab for 500g right now, for example (unsure if it's unique at this point, no access to gaming pc right now).

Edit: I can get Truesteel Helm for 300g. Doubt it'll ever be as cheap as that. It's unique too - with some upgrades being unique as well.

shares model/color with , which is crafted, but may be expensive to make. Also, the Talonite's may still have value when it becomes more scare due to crate changes. Don't overpay for one, but if you find one up cheap it may be a good investment.
Edit: Does anyone know if it still drops from ? I haven't tried for a few years.

It's one thing to count on consistent sales of Vanilla/TBC crafts that cost 15-100g to craft and sell for 500-3000% profit. It's another thing entirely to ask the masses to fill their appearances tab with things that will cost us thousands of gold to craft.

That said, I've been happily stockpiling Savage Bloods under 50g each. I'll be one sad panda if they nerf the Bloody Satchel and the floor drops out from under the price, but between speculation on those upgrade tokens and the Draenor Illusions, I have no qualms about sitting on 10,000+ Savage Blood.

I've stayed away from Felblight entirely. Stage 5 and 6 don't have unique appearances, so I buy only as many as I need to replenish my current 5/6 inventory for alt sales.

Relevant nitpick though - save people from dropping 10k like I just did!

And me! Darn it. Call me crazy, but I've cleared out all and similar looking blades for 3k and below. I'm fairly certain they will sell.

Boy is there fun to be had here. I've never had my main guild bank so valuable as I have today.
Between the various amounts of , , , , , (and respective similar daggers), s and so many other items, my eyes truly glaze when I look at this guild bank. And that's only for weapons.

Dios mio, this will be a great beginning to an expansion, at least gold-wise!

Edit:
This is very hard for us to compile a list without being at least a little organized. So, I propose maybe we focus on certain areas. Personally (because I love them) I'll be focusing on weapons. I'll work on creating a list of possible snags, crafts, and more and investigate which transmogs are unique. I'll do my best to check them in the PTR as well.
I'll take sometime during the weekend to do so.

PS: The Darkmoon Fair is going and only comes back in 7th of August. I'm not sure of when the pre-patch will land, but if you're planning on getting something from it, do it now. I've just bought a few thousand - milling them them for to get the Fiery Inks, which in turn will be used to craft - these lead to and , (both BoE) which are rewarded in a repeatable quest in the DMF.
I'm stocking on some of the decks and only around 10 of the actual weapons, since players might prefer to take their time to go to DMF. Some, surely, will be lazy and will buy the weapons straight of the auction house. Unless someone ( @Caitlyn @Samiera ) can confirm that finishing the quest will not reward you both appearances, since the weapons are BoE, in which case I'll just turn them into weapons.

Edit 2: Got the PTR installed, now I can do my own research. Apparently and the other quest rewards have their source listed as Quest, making me think that *maybe* they will be turned BoP. Regardless, mmo just confirmed warlords season 3 finishing 19th of july so 7.0 should follow soon after. That means we'll still get another shot at DMF relatively close to 7.0 with more definitive answers. I'm holding on my share of for now.